Red Dawn
by Thesseli
Summary: The sequel to 'Back in the Red 3.5'. Preslash. Lister's being nice to Rimmer, who finds it all very confusing.


Red Dawn   
  
  
  
It had been a little over a week since the crew was revived, and Rimmer was still trying   
to figure out just where he stood with Dave Lister.  
  
It still took some getting used to. That everyone had been dead, that is, dead and then put   
back together via their DNA and personality disks. That it hadn't been done until years   
after the accident was also hard for him to wrap his head around. It had been years for   
Lister…years gone by in the blink of an eye for himself and the rest of the Red Dwarf's   
crew. Years where Lister's only companions had been a mechanoid, a hyper-evolved cat,   
and a hologram. A hologram of himself.  
  
This, combined with the fact that Lister just wasn't acting right, was the main source of   
Rimmer's discomfiture.  
  
He'd noticed it soon after his bunkmate's return. Since he'd come back, Lister had been   
telling Rimmer bits and pieces about life after the accident, including things about the   
hologram. Rimmer was intrigued and a little disturbed that there had been a copy of   
himself, one that had done the near-impossible and kept Lister sane all those years. He   
was even more intrigued -- shocked actually -- that Lister spoke of this hologram with   
what sounded like affection. It just wasn't normal. And the fact that Lister didn't seem   
to realize he was doing anything out of the ordinary was even more unnerving. All this   
nice talk about his duplicate was starting to bother him. Here he was, flesh and blood,   
the very same man the hologram had once been. Didn't that count for anything?  
  
"What?" he'd asked skeptically a few days ago, after hearing yet another amusing   
anecdote about something Lister and this *imitation* of him had done. "Are you saying   
that a dead copy of me was better than the real me?"   
  
Unexpectedly, Lister had almost seemed hurt, and backpedaled quickly. "No," he'd   
protested. "I'm not sayin' that, but…" And then he'd launched into some weak excuse   
about how he and the hologram had spent so much time together -- blah blah blah -- and   
Rimmer had just snorted and shook his head in dismissal. But the more he'd thought   
about it afterwards, the more puzzled he'd become. In the old days, Lister would never   
have even faked an apology. Now he actually seemed offended that Rimmer had   
doubted his sincerity. At the time, he hadn't a clue as to why.   
  
It wasn't until the incident with Cassandra that he'd put everything together, that he'd   
worked out what exactly Lister was doing that seemed so odd.   
  
It wasn't that Lister was being more civil with him than he was used to, or that Lister had   
been so tolerant of his duplicate, although these things were certainly part of it. It was   
that Lister had been treating him as if he *was* this other Arnold Rimmer, this copy of   
himself that he'd been with for so long that they actually seemed to have called a truce.   
(Admittedly, Lister's companions had been doing it too, although not to as great a degree   
-- Cat had even called him 'goalpost head' a few times, which he didn't understand at   
first, until Lister had explained it.) It was kind of strange…but even stranger was that   
he'd actually found himself responding, for some unfathomable reason, by being nicer to   
Lister, even though he wasn't the Rimmer the other man had grown accustomed to.   
  
No, not just accustomed to. Fond of. Lister had become fond of the hologram.   
  
And he didn't know what to make of that.  
  
Rimmer's thoughts were a confused jumble. 'His' Rimmer, that's what Lister had called   
the hologram. Not that he was jealous. How could you be jealous of yourself? So what   
if he wasn't the Rimmer who Lister almost seemed to like. Come to think of it, the   
Kochanski who'd been with Lister on Starbug wasn't 'his' Kochanski either. This wasn't   
the Kochanski from their Red Dwarf. This was someone from a parallel universe who   
didn't even *look* like the Kochanski that Lister had such a thing for way back when.   
*This* Kochanski had been put into stasis on her Red Dwarf, where that other universe's   
Lister had been resurrected as a hologram. And from what Rimmer had heard, that other   
Lister had changed a lot from the man sleeping so soundly in the bunk above him. No   
wonder the woman wasn't interested in him…not that Lister himself seemed to be   
pursuing her all that closely. It hadn't even been two weeks, and it was obvious even to   
Rimmer -- and if he could see it, then everyone else could too. Especially a super-  
intelligent computer that could see into the future.  
  
So why in the world had Cassandra tried to antagonize Lister by saying that he and   
Kochanski had gone to bed together?   
  
This was another of the things that was bothering him.  
  
To Rimmer, what Cassandra had done made even less sense than Lister's civility. That   
ploy would only have worked if the woman in question was the Kochanski from their   
universe, or if this new Kochanski had become involved with Lister on Starbug. But he   
knew that hadn't happened. Cassandra trying to provoke Lister into a jealous rage by   
claiming he'd had sex with this near-stranger wasn't logical. But then, jealousy didn't   
have to be logical, even if computers did. Maybe the thought of any version of   
Kochanski making love with another man would be enough to rile Lister. But Kochanski   
wasn't the type who'd go with just anyone. Unlike himself…Rimmer freely admitted   
that if he'd had the chance, he'd have slept with Kochanski in a second. Lister certainly   
knew that. Their AR-trial had given them ample proof of Arnold Rimmer's lack of   
discretion. Cassandra probably thought Lister would believe her because *of course* an   
underhanded weasel like Arnold Rimmer would have a go at Kochanski if he could.  
  
But why would Lister care if he'd made love to Kochanski, if Lister didn't want her?  
  
This was getting confusing.   
  
So maybe it wasn't about Kochanski. Maybe it was something about him. Maybe Lister   
had some deep-seated moral opposition to Arnold Rimmer having any fun.  
  
Or maybe, Rimmer thought derisively, Cassandra was betting that Lister would shoot him   
not because he'd had sex with Kochanski, but because he'd had sex with *anyone*…  
  
…anyone other than him.   
  
That thought, and the feelings it provoked, was disturbing enough to make Rimmer's   
stream-of-consciousness internal diatribe come to a screeching halt. He was surprised   
that such a bizarre notion had crossed his mind, and even more surprised when he   
realized that it didn't really bother him.  
  
Maybe he'd been in deep space too long.  
  
He sat up and gazed warily at the upper bunk. Lister's breathing was deep, regular…and   
peaceful in the pre-dawn silence. There was something comforting about it.  
  
Rimmer thought about it some more. Lister had come to him -- not to any of his old   
friends like Peterson or Chen or Selby -- when he'd hatched his plan to track down the   
nanobots and prove his innocence. He'd enlisted Rimmer's help, no-one else's. He'd   
even offered to help him in return. And after being sent to the brig, he'd insisted that he   
be allowed to share a cell with his old bunkmate.   
  
Maybe all those years with the hologram had changed things, he thought. Maybe Lister   
was treating him as he'd treated his duplicate because, either consciously or   
subconsciously, he wanted to have that close a relationship with him. With the real,   
flesh-and-blood Arnold Rimmer. Maybe Lister really did care for him…because he was   
the man that the hologram had started out as. Because somewhere, deep inside him,   
Lister once saw something worthwhile.  
  
He laid back down and closed his eyes, a small smile on his lips. He could live with that. 


End file.
